Tent Camping!

I won't be blogging for the next several days because once or twice a year the family wants to go to a campground for a wonderful few days of sleeping on the ground in a cloth hut that smells like mildew with a rock in their back all night. Or my favorite, the tent is on an incline and I must decide whether I want to sleep with my head higher and feel like I am going down a slide all night or my feet higher and feel like I am being dragged by my feet across the dirt like a caveman would do his wife if he wanted her to get in the kitchen and cook! Wait there are more joys to this. There are the bathrooms that smell like the old girl scout latrines you loved as a child. There are the cold showers that are usually not so private! There is always the redneck family next to you that is up fighting all night. Last time we went to Trout Pond the family next to us {and I use that term loosely} got mad at the grown drunk son and the 60 year old father decided that although he couldn't turn him over his knee anymore that he could sock him in the face and bloody his nose! Then there is the cooking over the fire and having ash all in your food from the wind whipping around. Although you're bored stiff, I'm not through yet. This is my vent remember. Don't forget the lovely bond with nature at its best with gnats swarming around your face, snakes lurking under every rock and the fact that you picked the campsite where the camp mascot {a skunk} will be visiting each evening! We went camping once back when we had a pop-up camper--so much better {I say that tongue in cheek!} Let me give you some advice. If you wake up in the middle of the night needing to relieve yourself of the 50 glasses of sweet tea you drank that day trying to keep yourself hydrated from the 150 degree heat of the day--Don't, I mean don't try to straddle a plastic solo cup in the middle of the bed with your husband sleeping next to you. Let me tell you when he decides to roll over just as you think you have accomplished your mission without a hitch, you fall , solo cup spills and even the sweetest husband doesn't like being doused with 32 oz of warm urine at 4:00 in the morning while he's sleeping! O.K I'm no idiot {some would disagree with this.} I learned my lesson. Next time I woke up with this same predicament I decided that although I didn't want to hike the 6.4 miles to the nearest stinky latrine I had to do it. I finally get there and go into a lovely stall {don't they ever think of decorating those johns} and just as I sit down to relieve myself of the 50 glasses of sweet tea that I have drank that day--------a snake crawls into the stall with me! Did you get that-A SNAKE CRAWLS INTO THE STALL WITH ME! I have to stand up on the toilet, pull up my drawers, lean over and open up the door and jump over the snake to get out of there and run back to the campsite! Now, husbands aren't to fond of being awakened at 3:00 in the morning with you ranting breathlessly something about a huge snake in the bathroom and you have only rid yourself of 8 oz. of your sweet tea consumption and need him to go back with you and GET THAT SNAKE OUT OF THE BATHROOM!!!!!!!! We return and husband dutifully removes said snake from bathroom so that his wife can finally get rid of the rest of the tea-no pun intended! My husband still laughs at this incident and insists that the snake was 6" long. He called it a baby snake but let me tell you one thing I learned from dear ole dad, A snake, is a snake, is a snake! And, when one is staring you in the face sticking his tongue out at you at 3:00 in the morning when you would rather be sleeping under a cardboard box in NYC than being out "under the stars" as my family likes to call it , well 6" looks like 6 feet! I asked my husband if I didn't whine all weekend if next Sat. we could do something I wanted to do. He sweetly said yes! After a minute of thought, I asked if he would be bringing duct tape as my mouth may need some assistance. He replied yes like, "why haven't I thought of this before!" I then asked if a sigh counted--no comment. How about a moan? He winked at me and said, "Honey, your pushing it."